Wednesday, February 11, 2009

A Vanderboegh Classic: What I Have Learned From the Twentieth Century

What happens when the government has a monopoly of force.

Meet the Faculty Emeritus of the University of Collectivism. They make the trains run on time, right to the execution camp gate. Here's a tip: Don't get in the boxcar.

I wrote this ten years ago. By request, here it is again.

Mike
III


What I Have Learned From the Twentieth Century

With thanks to Schoolmasters Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Mao Tse-Tung and Pol Pot

From the Liberty Pole
June, 1999
by Mike Vanderboegh

As an amateur historian of this sad century whose time is almost up, I would like to reflect upon six lessons I have learned in my studies. Folks who wish to live free and prosperous in the next century would do well to understand the failures of the past.

LESSON NO. 1: If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and take you someplace you do not want to go because of who you are or what you think -- kill him. If you can, kill the politician who sent him. You will likely die anyway, and you will be saving someone else the same fate. For it is a universal truth that the intended victims always far outnumber the tyrant's executioners. Any nation which practices this lesson will quickly run out of executioners and tyrants, or they will run out of it.

LESSON NO. 2: If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and confiscate your firearms -- kill him. The disarmament of law-abiding citizens is the required precursor to genocide.

LESSON NO. 3: If a bureaucrat tells you that he must know if you have a firearm so he can put your name on a list for the common good, or wants to issue you an identity card so that you be more easily identified -- tell him to go to hell. Registration of people and firearms is the required precursor to the tyranny which permits genocide. Bureaucrats cannot send soldiers to doors that are not on their list.

LESSON NO. 4: Believe actions, not words. Tyrants are consummate liars. Just because a tyrant is "democratically elected" does not mean he believes in democracy. Reference Adolf Hitler, 1932.

And just because a would-be tyrant mouths words of reverence to law and justice, or takes a solemn oath to uphold a constitution, does not mean be believes such concepts apply to him. Reference Bill Clinton, among others.

The language of the lie is just another tool of killers. A sign saying "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Makes You Free) posted above an execution camp gate does not mean that anybody gets out of there alive, and a room labeled "Showers" does not necessarily make you clean. Bill Clinton notwithstanding, the meaning of "is" is plain when such perverted language gets you killed. While all tyrants are liars, it is true that not all political liars are would-be tyrants -- but they bear close watching. And keep your rifle handy.

LESSON NO. 5: Our constitutional republic as crafted by the Founders is the worst form of government in the world, except when compared to all the others. Capitalism, as well, is a terrible way to run an economy, except when compared to all other economic systems. Unrestrained democracy is best expressed as three wolves and a sheep sitting down to vote on what to have for dinner. The horrors of collectivism in all its forms -- socialism, communism, national socialism, fascism -- have been demonstrated beyond dispute by considerable wasteful trial and bloody error. Leaders such as Bill Clinton who view the Constitution as inconvenient and ignorable are harbingers of tyranny.

LESSON NO. 6: While nations do not always get the leaders they deserve, they always get the leaders they tolerate. And anyone who tells you that "It Can't Happen Here" is whistling past the graveyard of history. There is no "house rule" that bars tyranny coming to America. History is replete with republics whose people grew complacent and descended into imperial butchery and chaos. Dictators count on the assistance of people who are complacent, fearful, envious, lazy and corrupt. While there is no "Collective guilt" to the crimes of a regime (all such crimes being committed by specific criminal individuals), there is certainly "collective responsibility" -- especially for those who watch the criminals at work without objecting or interfering.

A French journalist of the last century wrote: "I must speak out, for I will not be an accomplice." Evil tyrants require, indeed they depend upon, willing and unwilling accomplices -- good people who would never think of harming a soul themselves. Lenin called such people "useful idiots."

De Tocqueville observed that "America is great because America is good. When America ceases to be good, she will cease to be great." As related in the Old Testament, God judged nations based upon the immorality and criminality of their leaders. Entire peoples were scourged because of their failure to remove corrupt leaders.

As we move from the Twentieth Century into the Twenty-First, we should take care to remember the ancient story of Sodom and Gommorrah. If we wish to avoid the butchery of the Twentieth Century and the righteous judgment of the God of our antiquity, we would do well to keep our Bibles, our Constitution and our firearms close at hand.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes sir, I'm a "clinger"....mthead

Anonymous said...

Excellent lessons. (If only public shools taught this way...) I've long thought that the US was ripe for such "leadership" and Our Messiah Benito Hussein Obama seems intent on proving me right.

Sad. Sad that he's arrived, and sad that we enabled it.

Vive la restoration!

Dakota said...

Outstanding .....very good short recap and anti-tyrant guide to the uneducated.

Anonymous said...

"Here's a tip: Don't get in the boxcar."

All people have an iherent right to self-defense. All Americans have a natural law right, codified in the 2nd Amendment, to keep and bear arms. Jews have been horribly oppressed over the centuries, and were, within the living memory of some still inhabiting this dustball, subjected to a genocide - and are STILL subect to the threat of a reply in the Mideast.

As a human being, as an American and as a Jew, I will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER surrender my arms, or even register them.

Registration has but one purpose - later confiscation. Confiscation from otherwise law-abiding citizens has but one purpose - permitting the oppression of each and every such person WITH IMPUNITY by a tyrant, up to and including literally genocide.

I've watched LOTS of films and read LOTS of books about the Nazi's attempt to exterminate my people - not once did I see or read about a cattle car in which there was found a firearm, nor in which a firearm was recovered from the crematoria. Once you're taken away, you're toast (maybe literally), so I'll take that tip.

Anyone wants to take my guns, you'll have to kill me to do it. Just bring along a bunch of body bags for your crew, and be careful not to slip on all of the loose brass surrounding my rapidly cooling body.

MOLON LABE, fothermuckers!
Never again! (But IF again, not for free).

Yours truly,

An ideological descendant of King David, Judah Maccabbee, Bar Kochba and the Bielski Brothers.

Robin said...

Great points, even more appropriate today. Check out Freedom Force for a similar and more detailed historical analysis.

Brian K Miller said...

My response to Lesson #3 would be:

http://www.constitution.org/mil/mil_act_1792.htm

What we need is not "gun registration and licensing". What we need is a new Militia Act re-affirming once and for all that the people are the militia and as such, have the right and the duty to own, maintain, and be proficient in the use of personal firearms.

I don't want to stop the Brady Bunch. I want to arm everyone who is willing to be trained!

Anonymous said...

Fireplaceguy, my schools did.

We moved a lot. I went to six different schools in five different states in the first grade alone. Things slowed down after that but I still attended another half dozen schools even though all my high school was in one place.

Everyone of them taught these lessons. We were a better and stronger people then. Somewhere along the way our blood has thinned and turned pale and tolerance for discomfort of any kind has burgeoned until we are as useless as eunichs in fertility clinic.

drjim said...

Great writing, Mike!

Anonymous said...

Indeed, excellent writing, Mike.

As for Anonymous, the Jew, mind if I stand next to ya? I'm not Jewish, but would be happy to stand next to you literally or figuratively.

We are fast approaching the time when enough is enough. Restoration will need to occur soon or not at all.

Where will anyone of us draw the line in the sand? At the ballot box? the complaint box? the 'tax' box? the ID regisistration box? the mala prohibitum law box? the firearms registration box? the firearms confiscation box? the denial of other rights box? the boxcar? the FEMA 'help' camp box? the execution wall box? Alas, some of these choices will be too late to be effective in saving us or the Republic. Don't be too late to be effective.

Bobcat

Transsylvania Phoenix said...

Brilliant, and I'm not saying it lightly. Must post this on my blog.

Anonymous said...

Great work! Once again.

This is better than all the history classes I took since elementary school, COMBINED.

Re: Anonymous. I wholly understand your grief at what happened to your people during these dark times.

Once again, I would have given anything to be transported back in time to Poland in the 1940s with my trusty John Bodine rolling block and plenty of ammo and go Charlie Quintard all over the Nazi's ass. Just give me a nice hill 1000 yards away from the enemy, plenty of trees and shrubs, and I guarantee I can produce an entire freight-train load of dead and rotting Nazis by the end of the day. I can just imagine what I would do to fuck those scumbags up and make them wish they never swore loyalty to that ugly, flatulous demon called Hitler.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this.

Orlando said...

Molon labe, brother.

john joseph jay said...

dear sirs:

i have posted this article at my blog, in its entirety.

i trust that i am o.k. in doing so.

what a wonderful article. i hope only to disseminate the truths therein to a few more people.

the link:
http://wintersoldier2008.typepad.com/summer_patriot_winter_sol/2009/06/what-i-have-learned-from-the-20th-century-by-mike-vanderboegh.html

i trust i have violated no protocals by doing so.

john jay

john joseph jay said...

friends:

published this at:

http://wintersoldier2008.typepad.com/summer_patriot_winter_sol/2009/06/what-i-have-learned-from-the-20th-century-by-mike-vanderboegh.html

john jay

Michael A. Pacer said...

Has it occurred to anyone that President Obama is not acting in good faith and actually wants to put the country in default?
First, we are in this situation because of him and the former Democrat majority in Congress. No RESPONSIBLE leader would have spent
his country into bankruptcy unless he WANTED to to see his country fall into disarray. He has pretty much destroyed the credit of the
United States and debased the dollar.
He has spent trillions of dollars, supposedly to bring the country out of economic chaos. In reality, he has wasted most of that money,
growing government when he should have been cutting back. He has funneled millions to his left wing buddies, (eg La Raza, ACORN, etc.)
Unemployment is higher than ever and what jobs were created were government jobs at an estimated cost of $270,000 per job.
Is anyone else seeing a pattern?
He couldn't have done more damage if he were a Soviet Agent!!!!
I think he sees that he is running out of time. The birth Certificate, his Social Security Number, the economy, unemployment, National Security
the "Dream Act" and more are all coming home to roost and he sees he is going to be a one term President. His job now is to do as much
damage to the country economically (debt crisis), militarily (cutting spending and gays), diplomatically(showing us to be an unreliable ally)
as he can before he goes.
His political base is crumbling because even they see he is wrong on almost every count. Imagine what he could do with "Executive Orders" alone.
It is time for Congress to act and IMPEACH Barak Hussein Obama before he does any more damage.

Unknown said...

A little light reading.

It’s looking more and more that we’re PAST that “awkward time” spoken of by Claire Wolfe.

NB